The new water treatment plant owned and operated by the Authority is a conventional water treatment plant which was constructed in accordance with a modular design.  Water flows by gravity to the plant from the Heffner Reservoir.  In times of extreme low reservoir level, provisions have also been made to pump water to the plant.  A new water transmission main also conveys water from the other two upland reservoirs to the plant.  Water from the Marilla Brook Reservoir will flow by gravity to the plant.  Provisions have been made to pump water from the Gilbert Run Reservoir to the plant.  Treated and filtered water leaving the plant flows by gravity to the city and to the two finished water storage reservoirs.  

As water enters the plant under a pre-set controlled rate, chemicals are added.  It is possible to introduce several defferent chemicals to the water.  The feed systems consist of the following:

From the filters the water flows to the clearwell or finished water basin, located beneath the eight treatment units, where post-treatment chemicals are added and the water is stored for delivery to the city.

The entire treatment plant is housed in a pre-engineered metal building.  Also contained in the building is an office, laboratory, control center and a pump room.  Equipment in the pump room includes pumps to provide pressure for in-plant water use, backwash pumps used to reverse the flow through the filters for cleaning the filter media and surface wash pumps which supply the rotating surface washers located above the filter media so that dirt on the top of the filters can be scoured loose at time of backwashing.

The entire process, including raw water, filter effluent, clearwell level and flow to the city are all controlled by an automatic control system.  Baskwashing or cleaning of the filters is under the control of a microprocessor shich automatically controls the backwash process.  Thus, the plant can be operated for extended periods of time without operator supervision.  In addition to the control system, a series of analyzers checks all plant operations and checks all pertinent parameters trhoughout the plant on a minute-to-minute basis.  Any abnormal analyses will immediately alert the standby operator and shut the plant down.

All wastewater generated by the plant is settled in two lagoons.  The overflow from the lagoons is recycled to the inlet to the treatment plant.

There are two finished water storage reservoirs.  The original 3.5 million gallon reservoir was covered as a part of the construction program.  In addition, a new 2.0 million gallon reservoir was constructed along with the treatment plant.